ITALIA TRASPORTO AEREO SPA(ITA Airways) Flight 611
Airbus A330 202 and Air France Boeing 777 200ER · Accident: ground collision while taxiing
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA22LA135
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Aircraft 1 · Airbus A330 202
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A330
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- EI-EJL
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John F. Kennedy International Airport (KJFK), new York, NYTo Rome–Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (LIRF), Fiumicino
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 129: Foreign
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Taxi · to runway
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Ground collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Aircraft 2 · Boeing 777 200ER
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 777
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- F-GSPQ
- Operator
- Air France
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charles de Gaulle International Airport (LFPG), ParisTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 21 years (built 2001)
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 129: Foreign
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Standing · engine(s) shutdown
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Ground collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight crew of F-GSPQ, an Air France B777-200ER, operating as Air France flight 008, had stopped with the parking brake set while waiting for the gate personnel to finish preparing gate 9 to receive their flight at Terminal 1, at John F. Kennedy International Airport (KJFK), when their airplane was struck by an ITA Airways A330-202 that was taxiing past. The Boeing 777 airplane received substantial damage to the right-hand elevator. The Airbus airplane only received scratches on the left winglet.
The Air France crew said that their company procedure to enter gate 9 is to stop and wait for a tow. There were no ground marshalling crew present when they arrived, so they stopped, shut down the engines, and waited about 10 to 15 minutes for a tow to arrive. About the time the tug arrived, the crew said they felt the airplane move due to a “hard connection”, but they were unaware of an airplane passing behind at that time. After the airplane was parked at the gate and passengers had disembarked, maintenance informed the flight crew of damage to the elevator, and it was determined to be from the ITA Airways A330 that had passed behind. The Air France flight crew said they tried to contact the Air Traffic Control Tower to stop the ITA Airways flight, but the conversation was lengthy, and the ITA Airways flight 611 took off without receiving timely notification of the collision.
The ITA Airways crew said they noted an Air France Boeing 777 entering at gate 9, a safe distance away, where it stopped awaiting a tow to parking.
The ITA Airways crew further stated that after engine start, they were cleared to taxi via Taxiway N, Taxiway B, Taxiway G, cross runway 22L, and via taxiway Z to join the queue for takeoff on runway 31L. They said that during the taxi at no time was there any indication that they had impacted an airplane.
After takeoff, while climbing out at 3,000 feet, the ITA Airways crew received a radio call from JFK Tower asking if they had impacted an airplane, and if they had any damage. The crew said they then conducted visual, and systems checks, and checked with the cabin crew. No abnormalities were observed.
Upon reaching FL300 the ITA Airways flight crew said they received a second radio call from Air Traffic Control. After contacting their company, and having ruled out any problems with the airplane, a decision was made for the ITA Airways flight to continue to Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport (FCO). After an uneventful flight and landing, an inspection revealed a longitudinal abrasion throughout its length on the upper part of the left winglet consistent with the winglet contacting an object.
Probable cause
The ITA Airways flightcrew’s misperception of the distance to maintain separation and safely pass the stopped Air France airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA22LA135
- Event ID
- 20220623105317
- Case number
- DCA22LA135
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2022-06-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d44f93173716b11be7abddf10367f8b19d9cdb2d51cc777a9516a03049b61fe2; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:37:58.126Z.